Tom Perkins' blathering should inspire Google to speak up

Updated 10:47 pm, Monday, January 27, 2014

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2007 file photo, Tom Perkins smiles during an interview, in San Francisco. Perkins serves on the New Corporation's board of directos.

FILE - In this Oct. 30, 2007 file photo, Tom Perkins smiles during an interview, in San Francisco. Perkins serves on the New Corporation's board of directos.

Photo: Ben Margot, AP 2007

Tom Perkins' blathering should inspire Google to speak up

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San Francisco is a city in need of an intervention. The urban brushfire over the Google buses has gone national, so you'd think we'd be moving toward a reasonable dialogue. Instead, we have flame-fanning and verbal gasoline.

The latest and most egregious example is the severely tone-deaf letter to the Wall Street Journal from billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins, in which he manages to compare blockades of shuttle buses to the Holocaust.

Perkins, who said he was writing from "the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco," somehow managed to lump the largely defunct Occupy movement, the anger at tech shuttle buses and a couple of teasing blog posts about his ex-wife, author Danielle Steel, to draw "parallels of fascist Nazi Germany."

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Perkins has been roundly criticized - as he should be - though he back-tracked some in an interview on Bloomberg Television on Monday, saying, "I'd deeply apologize to you and anyone who has mistaken my reference to Kristallnacht as a sign of overt or latent anti- Semitism." But the larger theme has implications for the city. His screed pushes the two sides in this debate even further apart.

By implying that there's a "rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent," he's reinforced the perception of the wealthy as clueless and entitled. And he's feeding the narrative that anyone who makes money in the city - or who works for one of the Internet companies that is successful - has a target on his or her back.

I'll bet the passengers on the tech shuttle buses were already uneasy. It's not just that the buses get stopped and protesters chant nasty things about the people inside. The only one who seems to be speaking up for those tech workers is Perkins - and he's making things worse. There are times when it seems everyone in the city hates techies.

That's not true. There's a large middle to this debate that understands the shuttle bus riders are just commuters. The buses may seem a little entitled, but even the most zealous protester has to admit the real issue is the cost of housing. The only thing accomplished from blocking buses is to get everyone's attention.

OK. Done. Let's move on.

While Perkins wasn't shy about making his views known, a key player is doing just the opposite.

It's Google, which only ended up in the spotlight because it is so visible. The company certainly isn't the only one shuttling employees from the city to the Peninsula, and it is just one of the tech firms to ride the economic boom.

But now that "Google bus" has become a meme, it is time for the company to step up. I know for a fact that City Hall is deeply frustrated at Google's lack of response to the bus protests - which really are about housing - and the word is San Francisco financial guru Ron Conway has taken the tech company to the woodshed, telling it to get involved both financially and publicly.

It's not Google's style to go public. Closed, silent and suspicious, the company is the despair of tech writers. You can e-mail its public affairs office a question, but expect a one-sentence response that says nothing. Reporters sometimes have off-the-record chats by phone, but only with the understanding that nothing is to be quoted.

Fine. If they want to release Google Glass or launch a Google barge on the bay and don't want to talk about it, that's their decision.

But this is a political fistfight. And Google - and the Facebooks and Apples of the world - are losing.

Here's what they need to do. First, speak up. No apologies are necessary, but there has to be an acknowledgement that the companies hear the protesters. For instance, is there a way to reroute buses or mitigate the congestion?

That's just for starters. What the tech companies really need to do is make tangible civic efforts, right here in the city. It's swell that Google is working on bringing Wi-Fi to Third World countries with high-altitude balloons, but what is it doing right here in its own backyard? Some thoughts on affordable housing - and yes, some actual money - is what is needed.

Google can't be silent anymore. Speak up for yourself. Because if you won't, people like Perkins will.